Another Sunday poetry find

I was just noodling around on the Net looking for some poetry perhaps appropriate to the Olympics, something perhaps on the triumph & disaster theme (other than Kipling), and came upon this intriguing little piece (previously unknown to me) by Yeats.

To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing

Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours' eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.

W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)